Think Like You

I’ll be the bull within the eye of the matador, within the eye of the spectator. Stab the tendons, snap my bones, and sweeten the blade. All this because you say I have nothing to live for?

Well, if I could only think like you… if I could think like you, I would have every bit of nonsense to fight for.

If I could, I would constantly complain. If I could think like you, I would never forget to fret. I would see myself through everyone else’s eyes but my own. I would be so ugly to my self. I would be indecisive. If I could think like you, I would steal the things I could not have. I would not cherish those things for too long. If I could think like you, I would kill for no damn reason. I would initiate battle after battle. If I could think like you… I would never learn my lesson because I would never meet any teacher. I would create machines that could think for me. If I could think like you, I would destroy my home. I would do what everyone else is doing and forget to take the blame. If I could think like you, I would believe everything that was said. I would  forget the difference between information and knowledge. If I could think like you, I would worship ancestors I never met. I would make their mistakes. I would anoint, skin, burry, and stab all things alive. I would never forget to conquer. I would assimilate my tribe and enslave my kind. I would see my contradictions and always remember to forget them. If I could think like you, I would create god in my own image. I would define restrictions to control your destiny. I would tell everyone that fear will take them. I would define everything so precisely and make sure that you always emphasize sin. I would persuade you that life is not easy so you must do certain things. I would keep many secrets about your birth. I would never tell you that fear spreads as fast but can never be as powerful as love. I would define so many things and it will take you your entire life to understand. I would pressure you to rebel or pressure you to join but either way… I will keep you from your self. If I could think like you, I would not even be able to forget how to love because forgetting implies that one once knew. If I could think like you, I would be wise at forgetting.

But I am just the bull within the eye of the matador, within the eye of the spectator.

If I could think like you, my dear matador, my dear spectator…

I would need entertainment too.

I have nothing to live for but you will see that I will fight as if I knew how to love.

 

Auguries of Innocence – William Blake

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov'd by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by woman lov'd.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy's foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return'd to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket's cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

Mistakes

 

I’ve known it to be so heavy

when all along it was as weightless as my fingerprint.

All the things that happened

were the makings of a unique grid that wraps around me.

The lack of control.

The bruised fruit.

The half-read novels.

The obedient stairway.

The hand I took so long to hold.

They are slashed words in an edited poem.

It’s my poem to read…

but I’ll turn it into a song if I damn well please to.

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Song of Myself – Walt Whitman

Oh my gooooodddnessss!! ok so this is absolutely the longest poem. it’s like 30 pages long in this book. i thought millay was it but nope…. this one by Walt Whitman is it. i’m only taking my favorite lines so far and i’m taking my sweet time. He had me at “atom” I am in love with this.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

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Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through
the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

3

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

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I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

________________________________________________

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and
am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.

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________________________________________________ more to come of my faves…

Move.

It’s simple. In order to discover, one must move.

We move on our own volition, or we move automatic with a catalyst.

What makes me move?

Besides the fact that I am driven?

Besides the fact that I desire a foreign comfort?

Besides all the beauty and wonderlust of the world?

A precise feeling makes me move.

Like a reflecting ray of light that hits exactly where it’s meant to hit,

I know how I want to venture… how I want to discover, how I want to move.

(If a thought is no different from matter, then in my mind you are truth. You are as real as the earth to my touch.)

I would have to swim waters to experience the air that’s so close to you…

because that which you evaporate,

I will allow it to filter through me. I will understand you.

I would have to walk deserts to identify those mirages in you…

because what you feel to be real,

I will see it for you. I will know you.

It is the innate urge.

There’s so much more earth to be felt now…

than there ever was then.